by Steve Laube

This past weekend was a time to mourn. We attended two family funerals here in Phoenix. The first for my wife’s grandma, Izora Weed. An amazing woman who was 101 when she passed. The second was my wife’s Uncle Ken Merrick who brings to mind many fond memories.

It has been a tough year. The loss of far too many family friends (including another this past week). My father last September. The family members mentioned above. And even our family pet of 16 years.

Loss after loss. Grief after grief. Before long it becomes a question of “How much more of this can we take?”

And yet, we have a firm foundation in the Risen Christ, the one who conquered death, and a faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Therefore we can embrace every blow and take joy in the sunrise. All the petty squabbles of the day-to-day take a different level of urgency when placed in the light of eternity.

The other half of the verse in Ecclesiastes 3:4 says there is “a time to dance.” You might say it is a call to the Arts to express life as the counterbalance to the phrase “a time to mourn.” So before you write another word think about the impact of that sentence, that scene, or that concept. Is it significant? Or something you casually tossed out on a whim? You have been given the gift of using words as a way to bring life to ideas and emotions. To express in some small way what it means to live a life of honor and grace and truth.

Our urgency should become electric as we seek to change our world word by word.